Gabby Allen: Being a granny must be amazing (like my Granny)

Gabby Allen

Age: 21

Family: Six-month-old son and husband of a year and a half

Occupation: House wife and stay-at-home-mom

About: For me, there's no better job than being a house wife and stay-at-home mom, and I feel thoroughly blessed to have it. My husband and I met at our previous place of employment, and somehow our two dominant and abrasive personalities meshed perfectly. Shortly after our marriage, we had a baby boy with a dominant and abrasive personality. Together, the three of us have grand adventures. I love to write, read, draw, paint, crochet, sew, ride and shoot. I don't like cleaning, driving, shopping or dealing with the general public.

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My granny is quite the character. She and I share many similarities, including a fondness for owls and bears. We also both like recipes, though she never uses any of them.

Once she very gleefully told me, “I just like recipes!”

Granny lives in the same town as me, so fortunately, I’m able to visit her fairly often. Last time I was there, I noticed that she had wind chimes attached to the comforter on her bed, so I asked her about it. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Well it’s to scare the ghosts away.”

I was rather taken aback by this and had no idea if she was joking. My fear was that if I laughed and she was being serious, I would hurt her feelings. My husband and I exchanged looks and it was clear that he was having the same dilemma.

Obviously, my fondness for messing with people came from her as well, because a few seconds later she started laughing at us.

Turns out she keeps the wind chimes at the edge of her bed simply so she can listen to them. During the winter her windows are, of course, always closed, so she can’t hear the ones she keeps outside. The idea is that every time she moves, the wind chimes on her comforter make noise. Being woken up by wind chimes in the middle of the night makes about as much sense to me as using them to keep the ghosts away, but I guess that’s just Granny.

Something else fantastic about her is that she can make something out of pretty much nothing. She had this sparkly ball that she liked and was lacking a stand for it. The next time I went over I noticed she had used the lid of an ice cream blizzard and it worked just great.

Nearly every time I go over there, I notice something different that she’s done, and I often gather inspiration from her to do creative things in my own home.

Granny frequently has new stories for me, though I don’t think she intends to. Many times she’s said to me,“Well, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’m going to anyway.”

What follows is always brutally and appropriately honest. That kind of bluntness is so refreshing in a society that habitually lies. Anytime I ask her a question, she always answers it, no matter how ugly the truth. I admire and appreciate this trait in her the most.

The last time I visited her, my son was with me. In another stroke of honesty, she told me about how much love she felt for me when she first met me as a baby, and that she felt the exact same thing for my baby.

“Just overwhelmed with love,” she said. It was then that I realized that being a granny must be just amazing. Now she’s a great-granny, which I’m sure is even more amazing!